The Signature Requirement

The Signature Requirement

Rule 11(a) puts a name on every paper. Every pleading, written motion, and other paper must be signed by at least one attorney of record in the attorney's name, or by the party personally if the party is unrepresented, and the paper must state the signer's address, e-mail address, and telephone number.¹ The signature gives the court one identifiable person to hold to the certification that attaches to filed papers, which the next section takes up. The contact information works from the other side: it lets the court and the opposing party reach that person directly instead of guessing which lawyer in a firm handled the filing. Because the rule calls for the attorney's own name, a firm name alone does not do the job.

The requirement reaches litigants who proceed without a lawyer.² In Business Guides, Inc. v. Chromatic Communications Enterprises, Inc., the Supreme Court walked through the rule's signature sentences: a represented party's attorney must sign, an unrepresented party must sign personally, and both signatures serve the same end, which is that litigants certify to the court that their papers are well founded.³ A baseless paper does the same harm whoever files it. A rule that excused pro se litigants would let anyone escape accountability by dispensing with counsel.

Signing a paper differs from swearing to it. Verification means the pleader states under oath that the allegations are true, and Rule 11(a) provides that a pleading need not be verified or accompanied by an affidavit unless a rule or statute specifically requires it.⁴ The signature has largely replaced the oath. Business Guides noted that certification by signature supplants some older forms of oath and attestation,⁵ and mandatory verification survives mainly in special cases, such as shareholder derivative suits under Rule 23.1, where it helps to have the pleader attest to particular facts at the outset.⁶ A pleader is held to account without an oath. A defendant who answers that he lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief about an allegation must do so in good faith,⁷ and the signature ties that representation to a named lawyer. An unsworn complaint in an ordinary civil case is therefore not defective, but a shareholder derivative complaint must be verified.

An omitted signature carries a mild but real consequence. The court must strike an unsigned paper unless the omission is promptly corrected after being called to the attorney's or party's attention.⁸ The clock starts when someone calls the omission to the signer's attention, and the cure is simply to sign. Striking applies only when no one stands behind the paper after being asked, which is exactly the situation the signature requirement exists to prevent. Once a signer steps forward promptly, the reason to strike disappears.

The duty a signature creates falls on the signer personally. In In re Kunstler, the lawyer relied on others to prepare and file the complaint, and the court held that his reliance was an improper delegation of his responsibility under Rule 11 to certify that the pleading filed over his name was well grounded in fact and in law.⁹ The court drew on the Supreme Court's statement in Pavelic & LeFlore v. Marvel Entertainment Group that the purpose of Rule 11 as a whole is to bring home to the individual signer his "personal, non-delegable responsibility."¹⁰ The reason follows from what a signature communicates. A name on the complaint tells the court that a particular lawyer vouches for it. If reliance on a trusted colleague excused the signer, the name would lend credibility to the paper while carrying no accountability. Delegating the drafting is ordinary practice, but delegating the judgment is not.

The signer's accountability connects to the court's power to sanction, which Rule 11 shares with other sources. Courts have an inherent power, traced to Article III, to control their dockets and the people appearing before them. Congress granted a further power to sanction attorneys in 28 U.S.C. § 1927. Several Federal Rules also permit sanctions against parties or their attorneys when the rules' mandates are violated.¹¹